The Rise and Fall of Penn Station

In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station's opening, the monumental building that was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed.

Related videos

Once considered a maverick for challenging industry standards--and shunned by the American Institute of Architects--John Portman is now recognized as one of the most innovative and imitated architects of his time.
With the Atlanta Hyatt Regency in 1967, Portman defied expectations and won international acclaim for his daring 22-story atrium.…

10 Buildings That Changed America tells the stories of ten influential works of architecture, the people who imagined them, and the way these landmarks ushered in innovative cultural shifts throughout our society.
From American architectural stalwarts like Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, to modern revolutionaries Frank Gehry and Robert…

For 25 centuries the Parthenon has been shot at, set on fire, rocked by earthquakes, looted for its sculptures, almost destroyed by explosion, and disfigured by well-meaning renovations. It has gone from temple, to church, to mosque, to munitions dump.
What could be next? How about a scientific search for…

Frederick Law Olmsted was among the first to regard landscape architecture as a profession and a fine art - in fact, with Calvert Vaux he virtually created that profession. Olmsted was also, far and away, the most eminent and successful person ever to practice it in this country. He was…

Whether serving as Christian church, Islamic mosque, or secular museum, Hagia Sophia and its soaring dome have inspired reverence and awe. For 800 years, it was the largest enclosed building in the world--the Statue of Liberty can fit beneath its dome with room to spare. How has it survived its…

The dome that crowns Florence's great cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore--the Duomo--is a towering masterpiece of Renaissance ingenuity and an enduring source of mystery. Still the largest masonry dome on earth after more than six centuries, it is taller than the Statue of Liberty and weighs as much as…

Every now and again, architecture goes through a phase of not caring whether it is liked. Employing shock tactics, it asks us to find beauty in what is commonly regarded to be ugly. In this series, writer and journalist Jonathan Meades explores the story of the Brutalist movement across Europe.…

Based on her personal diary, this program presents a dramatic exploration of the life of Martha Ballard, a woman who lived through the economic boom and bust, and political and social turmoil of the decades following the American Revolution.

She was a biologist for the federal government when she first noted the effects of the unregulated use of pesticides and herbicides, especially DDT. Magazines, afraid of losing advertising, refused to publish her articles. When Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1963, she was viciously attacked, called "an ignorant and…

By the time he died in 1931, Thomas Edison was one of the most famous men in the world. The holder of more patents than any other inventor in history, Edison had amassed a fortune and achieved glory as the genius behind such revolutionary inventions as sound recording, motion pictures,…

In the summer of 1910, hundreds of wildfires raged across the Northern Rockies. By the time it was all over, more than three million acres had burned and at least 78 firefighters were dead. It was the largest fire in American history. "Big Burn" premieres February 3, 2015 on PBS…

The Colosseum is a monument to Roman imperial power and cruelty. Its graceful lines and harmonious proportions concealed a highly efficient design and advanced construction methods that made hundreds of arches out of 100,000 tons of stone. In its elliptical arena, tens of thousands of gladiators, slaves, prisoners and wild…